Our Lord and God Jesus Christ, desiring to prepare for His dwelling place a holy church. And a holy house, having sent His angels to the righteous Joachim and Anna, from whom He willed that His Mother should come forth. After the flesh, beforehand proclaimed the virgin birth. To testify to the virgin birth.
The Immaculate Conception is celebrated on 9 December and it is the Feast where the Blessed Virgin Mary was conceived and born. Not, as some say, at seven months or without man, but at nine months and of union with man. For Christ alone was born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, unveiled and unmixed. As He alone knows, without the will of the flesh. He, being perfect God, has taken upon Himself all the things of His bodily nature, as He built and fashioned the flesh of men from the beginning.
This day, therefore, we celebrate, as one in which we commemorate the news given by the angel to St. Anne., To whom he announced the holy conception of the Blessed Mother of Christ. St. Anne had her roots in the family of Levi. Being the last-born daughter of the great priest Matan and his wife Mary. Anna had two other sisters, Mary and Sovi. Who, having been married in Bethlehem, gave birth to Elizabeth. The mother of St John the Baptist, who was a second cousin of the Saviour.
What does the Bible say about Immaculate Conception?
Anna married the wise Joachim of Galilee and gave birth to Mary, the Mother of God, only in old age and after much prayer. “The holy and righteous Godly parents Joachim and Anna are often invoked in prayer by couples who fail to have children.
The Bible says about the Immaculate Conception that once she had fulfilled her mission of giving birth to the Mother of God, whom God had appointed to be the holiest woman in the human race, St. Anne spent the rest of her life in prayer, fasting and doing good works for the afflicted. At the age of 69, the Mother of God gave her soul in peace. At the age of 11, the Virgin Mary had already been orphaned, both parents having already moved on to the Lord. Saint Anne is celebrated in the Orthodox Church on three distinct dates, marking three aspects of her personality.
On 25 July is the commemoration of St Anne’s Adoration, marking the end of her holy earthly life and her move to eternal heavenly joy. On 9 September, the day immediately following the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, she is celebrated together with Saint and Saint Joachim as the Virgin’s parents.
What is the meaning of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception?
God, having made all things out of nothing, made the barren womb to bring forth fruit, and made her who had lived childless in her life a mother of children, with praise giving her as a worthy end of her just request. From Anna God Himself was to come forth a bearer of flesh for the second birth of the world; for it pleased the wise and mediatorial parents of men to give birth to a daughter Mary, the Foremost of all nations, foreordained and chosen.
The real meaning of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception is that Saint Mary was born and programmed to be the biblical Birth Mother of The Son of God. This is why consistory is held in the honorable house of the Mother of God, which is in Svorani, near her holy church. Let the history of this birth be sought in September, on the ninth day, in the lives of the Saints and Righteous Fathers Joachim and Anna. There it is written more fully about the parents who conceived her and their daughter. Whoever will, may read it, for it is fitting for the present feast.
Also on this feast day, the Church commemorates the Holy Prophetess Anna who, for her many prayers and strong faith, gave birth after many years of infertility to the holy prophet Samuel and three other sons and three daughters.
Read also: Did Jesus resurrect? Proof of Jesus’ Resurrection
